Puppy Cross Review (Greenie)
If you enjoy Picross/Nonogram games, this is a nice little game to pick up and enjoy!
Pros:
-You can, indeed, pet the dogs (and cats!)
-The music kind of slaps. There's enough variety in the tracks that none of them really overstay their welcome.
-Dalmatian mode lets you generate random puzzles to play once you're done with the main puzzles. However, the game does give you a disclaimer that sometimes these puzzles can have multiple solutions due to their random nature, and this mode does not give you any guidance as to whether or not you've made a wrong move.
-Lots of different dog breeds to collect and put into your garden, and many different objects you can place to liven things up as well. I made a cute little flowery play area with butterflies and honeybees and placed lots of cute toy dogs like the shih tzu and pekingese and watching them play is very adorable.
-If you're familiar with Hungry Cat Picross, I vastly prefer these cute dogs watching your gameplay over the cats in HCP, lol. If you accidentally make a wrong move in here, the dog will look mildly upset, but it won't give you that "I am so disappointed in you" squint and head shake the HCP cat does. Proof that dogs are indeed better than cats. ;3
Cons:
-As I've seen in other reviews, the animations can be irritatingly slow at times (namely puzzle completion animations and especially the dalmatian mode completion animation). You're unable to skip these animations so it's kind of a pain.
-Some of the secret achievements are very difficult to figure out, and you will likely need a guide if you don't want to experiment with trial-and-error, since they involve specific arrangements of dogs and objects that act as references to pop culture. The Animal Crossing, Monopoly, and Simpsons references were very clever and cute, though!
-For a Picross veteran, this game is rather short (most of my playtime came from leaving the game running all day while I was at work, oops). You're going to get the majority of your gameplay from the kitty dlc, so make sure you pick it up when you're done with the puppy puzzles. I found the kitty puzzles very fun because they're mega-picross puzzles, if you're familiar with those.
-To add to the above, the game progression is a little weird, as each 8-stage "world" starts with easy 5x5 puzzles and gradually progresses to the harder 20x20 puzzles. Most picross games have all of the 5x5s at the start of the game and the final parts of the game are the 20x20s.
-As cute as the garden area is, there really isn't a lot of substance to it. In reality, you're making a bit of a screensaver, since the only real interactions you have with the dogs (and cats) is clicking on them to hear them bark (or meow). It would have been cute to play fetch with the puppies by clicking and releasing a ball or play with the kitties using a click-and-hold feather toy.
Overall, this is a cute and harmless little picross game that's definitely worth checking out (maybe when it's on sale though). Definitely don't pass up the DLC; it's free and adds a lot to the overall experience of the game.